Pages

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Moonkin Guide to Patch 4.0.1

I've gotten a lot of e-mails asking a lot of questions about glyph, gear, and other choices that will need to be made when 4.0.1 is released. I still dont think it will come out for a few more weeks but I thought I would go ahead and publish this guide so that you guys can get a head start if you want.

I do want to make one thing very clear though. This is not a level 85 Cata guide. While a lot of these points will apply to Cataclysm raiding, there are some differences. When we get to Cataclysm I will make the necessary changes.

Talent spec:

At level 80 we will have only 36 points, and 31 of those have to be spent in the Balance tree before we can put any points in the Feral or Restoration trees. This makes the Tier 2 talents in those trees unreachable until Cataclysm is released. It doesn't have a huge impact on my choices, but I do a few things a little different at level 80 then I would at level 85.

In the first tier of the Resto tree I would normally put two points in Natural Shapeshifterinstead of Blessing of the Grove to get access to Master Shapeshifter. However, that is pointless since Master Shapeshifter is unreachable until we gain another talent point.

Mana will be a big concern at level 85 unless something changes, but as a couple of commentors pointed out Mana probably won't be a big concern at level 80. Owlkin Frenzy is a weak talent and Gale Winds is very situational when it comes to actual boss fights. However, they are probably the best DPS options available.

However, the other possibilities don't offer a lot of utility to a PvE enviornment.

Overgrowth - It's still in the beta but there are reports that it is gone from the PTR. I'm not exactly sure what it's status is. Either way it is not a very good PvE talent.

Owlkin Frenzy - Still a bad PvE talent since it rarely procs in a raid environment.

Gale Winds - It's lots of fun for big numbers during trash, but there isn't a fight at the moment that really needs this kind of AoE.

Solar Beam- Primarily a PvP talent. May be situationally useful, but other classes provide better interupts.

Fungal Growth- Nearly useless at level 80, since we won't have Wild Mushroom, and we can't control where the trents die.

Dreamstate & Moonglow - Will be manditory at level 85, but mana is not an issue at level 80.

Level 80 Leveling Spec:Link In this build I dropped Blessing of the Grove, because it doesn't have much of a DPS impact unless you game the system. Dreamstate is also less important because you can drink for mana.

I picked up Owlkin Frenzy because it procs quite often while leveling, and the added damage is helpful. I picked up Solar Beam because interupt can be very helpful for leveling. It allows you to pull casters away from other mobs and can save you from taking some damage. You culd also take two of these points and put them in Natural Shapeshifter so that you have Master Shapeshifter available as soon as you ding 81.

Key Talent and Spell Changes:

Eclipse: You should know this already but Eclipse has gotten a complete overhaul. It is no longer a random proc or a timed buff. Now, Eclipse is procced when you generate 100 Lunar or Solar Power and lasts until use the 100 Lunar or Solar Power you had generated. In short, Eclipse now comes with charges, which solves many of the Eclipse problems we had in WotLK. Starfire generates Solar power, Wrath generates Lunar Power, and Starsurge generates both.

Also, the Eclipse buff is now a percentage damage increase for both Lunar and Solar Eclilpse. It no longer increases the crit chance of Starfire during Lunar Eclipse.

Starsurge: Our new Nuke. There is nothing really special about this spell other then being much stronger then either Wrath or Starfire. It also has a 15 sec cooldown and can become instant cast with Shooting Stars.

Scaling DoTs: Both Moonfire and Insect Swarm will scale with Crit, Haste, and Eclipse. There are still some bugs with Sunfire not scaling properly, but I expect these to be fixed soon.

Rebirth: Now has a 30 min cooldown. This means it will no longer be available every attempt, therefore you want to be careful how you use it.

Thorns: Now lasts only 20 seconds, but is much stronger then it was before. Some are advocating putting it on the tank on cooldown, but I'm not sure this is viable since it is a mana hog. That said, it is a good idea to throw it on a tank at the start of fight or when they are picking up adds.

Other thoughts:

Omen of Clarity and Insect Swarm are now trained abilities

No more Mana on Crit

Mark of the Wild is now raid wide and has no reagent.

Wild Mushroom is a level 85 abilty and not available when 4.0.1 is released.

Key Gearing Issues:

No More Cloth:Leather Specializationnow increases our total Intellect by 5%, but only works if you are not wearing any cloth. Since Int is now converted to Spell Power this is a required buff. You probably already have at least 4 leather items with your tier set if you are an active raider. If you haven't already I suggest you start looking for leather replacements for your cloth pieces.

Hit Capping: The static hit chance buffs we currently receive from Imp Faerie Fire, Balance of Power, and Heroic Presence if you're Alliance have been removed from the game. This increases the Moonkin Hit Cap to 446 Hit Rating. The good news is that the new Balance of Powerconverts Spirit to Hit Rating for Moonkin. Please know that this does not include the base Spirit you get from leveling up.

It's likely that most of you will have to make some adjustments to reach the 446 hit cap. If you are under the hit cap it might be a good idea to pick up of the leather pieces I mentioned above that have Spirit. I will go in greater detail below, but there are several good changes you can make to your Gem and Enchant choices. You can also adjust your Hit Rating by Reforging your gear which I think will be available in 4.0.1 but I'm not 100% positive on that.

Reforging: I am not 100% positive that this will be available with 4.0.1, but if so it is a great tool to adjust your stats so that you can better optimize your performance. Here are the basic rules.

You cannot reforge to gain or lose a primary stat. (Int, Stam, Agi, or Str)

You can reforge any secondary stat (Spirit, Hit, Haste, Crit, Mastery), but you can only gain a stat not currently on the item. For example, if you have an item with Spirit and Haste, you can turn 40% of the Spirit into Crit or Mastery but not Haste.

Assuming Reforging is available with 4.0.1 here are a couple of strategies you might want to use.

If you are over the hit cap, reforge Spirit and/or Hit Rating into Haste if possible. Crit Rating would be your secondary choice if necessary.

If you are under the hit cap, reforging Crit Rating into Spirit is your best option. Don't convert it to Hit Rating since it is less versatile.

If you are at the hit cap and have some items with Crit Rating but no Haste rating you may concider converting some of that Crit to Haste Rating. This isn't really necessary but will probably boost your performance a little.

Spell Power to Intellect Conversion: You probably already know that Spell Power is being removed from most of the gear in game, and that Intellect will provide Spell Power instead. As a result Blizzard has gone back and removed all the Spell Power from gear but have adjusted the Intellect levels to compensate for the loss.

However, the amount of Intellect on an item post 4.0.1 does not equal the amount of Spell Power before the patch. THIS IS NOT A NERF. There are several talents and buffs that increase Intellect by a combined percentage of 16.865%, and the Spell Power to Int conversion that Blizzard made takes these buffs into account. For example, if an item had 100 Spell Power before the patch, then the item will have 86 Intellect after the patch. This equals 100.5 Spell Power and you get the added benefit of additonal Crit Chance. This is actually a slight buff.

Stats at level 80:

The first thing to know about stats at level 80 is that there are no more soft caps. The Haste Cap no longer exists because Wrath's cast time was increased to 2 seconds and Nature's Grace was change to be less of a static buff. The Lunar Crit Cap is gone because Eclipse no longer provides a crit bonus for Starfire. However, there are plenty of changes to stats.

Spell Power: This stat does still exist in the game, but not in the same way that you find currently on live. Most of your gear will have Int instead of Spell Power, and Int is converted to Spell Power on a one to one ratio. That said caster weapons will still provide Spell Power as an individual stat. Many of the Enchants and Socket bonuses are not coverted to Int as well.

Hit Rating / Spirit: For the purposes of a Moonkin these are the same stat. Hit capping is still a priority after the patch but oddly Hit Rating /Spirit are not as valuable as Intellect. If you have to choose between picking up Hit Rating or Spirit, choose Spirit since it is a little more versatile if you ever have to go Restoration.

Haste Rating: As I said above the Haste cap no longer exists and Haste will be the best secondary stat after you are hit capped.

Crit Rating: Still a good stat but doesn't pack the punch that haste does.

Mastery Rating: You are unlikely to have any of this on your gear after the patch, so you shouldn't have to worry about it for patch 4.0.1. That said, it is probably our worst DPS stat. Do not make any effort to pick it up until Cataclysm is released.

The New Stat Equation:

Int > Hit > SP > Haste > Crit > Mastery

This is based upon my simulator using my stats at level 80 on the Beta.

Gems:

Your Runed Cardinal Rubies will be converted into Brilliant Cardinal Rubies and provide Int instead of Spell Power. If you have Hit Rating gems equipped they will change color from yellow to blue or orange to purple. You may lose a socket bonus as a result. All of your other gems should stay the same.

As a general rule I am a fan of matching Gem color to Socket color to get the socket bonus, and assuming you are below the hit cap, going for the socket bonuses makes more sense after 4.0.1.The blue sockets are a good way to pickup some Spirit to help you reach the Hit Cap. That said every gem you socket should have some Int on it. Do not use pure Spirit gems.

In both of these cases you are trading Spell Power for Int and Crit Rating for Spirit. Even if you are over the hit cap that is probably a good trade since you can convert some of the excess Spirit into Haste Rating.

You'll probably want to stick with the Greater Speed enchant in the back slot, but I have heard a lot of tanks complain about threat. There is a possibility that Wisdom might be better because of the threat reduction and it gives you some Spirit.

There is quite a bit of debate on which are the best Prime Glyphs. I suggest getting all five just in case, but I would use Glyph of Insect Swarm, Glyph of Wrath, and Glyph of Moonfire. I wouldn't use Glyph of Starfire at this time because it doesn't help much on movement fights were you will be over writing your DoT. A think Glyph of Starsurge is situationally useful if it helps you line Starfall up with add phases or other important DPS periods, but probably not good as a standard Glyph.

Squawk and Awe: Since Eclipse has been completely redone Squawk and Awe we currently use will be broken and needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. The good news is that Adoriele is planning a new version that will support the new Eclipse. The bad news is he doesn't expect it to be complete by the time 4.0.1 comes out, especially if it comes out soon. There is a possibility that a stripped down version will be available at 4.0.1 so keep your eyes open, and will link it if I see it.

Balance Power Tracker: This is a new addon that addresses most of my issues with the standard Blizzard Eclipse UI. It allows you to move and enlarge the Eclipse bar to make it more notice able. It also tells you if your current cast will proc Eclipse and has several other features that should help you manage your rotation. (link)

DPS and Rotation Strategies:

There are a lot of strategies floating around but most of them are based upon bad information or just don't make sense. Here are a few basic rules that you can play with until we get a better handle on the more complicated ideas.

DoTs: Insect Swarm and Moonfire are our to highest DPET spells. Therefore their up time should be as close to 100% uptime as possible. Generally you should refresh your DoTs if they have about a second of time left, how ever, if you are about to proc the appropriate Eclipse it may make sense to wait 2 or 3 second to refresh the DoT.

Also, if you need to refresh them both about the same time, cast Moonfire first, so that Insect Swarm gets buffed by Nature's Grace. There also looks to be a little benefit to double casting Moonfire, so it's DoT is buffed by Nature's Grace. According to my rough calculations the second Moonfire has a slightly higher DPET then the nukes. Definately do it on the move if you can.

Starsurge: Should be cast on Cooldown. Starsurge has a much higher DPET then our other Nukes and I have found no rotation were it makes sense to delay its cast.

Nukes: If your DoTs are up and your cooldowns are down, your nuke strategy is as simple as "Cast the right one." Just remember that Wrath will not generate Lunar power after Lunar Eclipse has been procced until Solar Eclipse is procced. This is also true for Starfire in reverse.

Cooldowns: Force of Nature should be cast on cooldown or when you need particularly high DPS. Starfall should be cast with Lunar Eclipse if possible or when extra DPS is needed.

Thorns: Some are advocating casting Thorns on the tank on cooldown. This may be viable, but because it is mana hog I am not recommending it at this time.

Hurricane: Hurricane is buffed by Solar Eclipse but does not consume it. If you have an AoE phase coming up it is a good idea hold Solar Eclipse so that your AoE damage is buffed by Eclipse.Other 4.0.1 Guides:

Have you even done any PTR testing? Because taking mana talents in your lvl80 Raid Spec is completely unnecessary. I can do 20 minute parses and still not be oom while alone at the dummies.When you add in replenishment and raid buffs, it gets even more self-sustaining. This is with 0/3 Moonglow and 0/2 Dreamstate...

In PTR raids my innervates are given away and I'm never at risk of going OOM - even in long fights in the range of 8-10 minutes.

We only have mana issues and stop being self sufficient around the lvl82~83 mark. Leveling specs can take Moonglow and Furor(to give away innervates) or Dreamstate(to keep innervates). But an 80 raid spec with 5 points wasted as you show is just bad advice. There's no way around it.

On the Beta @ 80 I can use this spec: http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#0IbGMkbdzkfoZbc:RkaVRaz0m and blast away at target dummies for ten minutes and not use half my mana, without even touching innervate.

Other than that, great writeup, I appreciated the analysis of all the enchants, and gemming. :)

Moonlyt: It seems that the only time you have to clip dots is on bloodlust, otherwise always refresh the dots 1 sec before it fades; you can delay is or mf if it fades off at 1 or 2 nukes from an eclipse proc - refresh the dot just after casting the first eclipsed nuke

There may be a case for Overgrowth in a leveling build if it goes live, but most of the comments I've heard indicate that there will be very little AoE in instances and Gale winds is probably not that useful.

@Villainus & Sir Nicholai

I am not on the PTR, but you are right. Mana probably isn't an issue at level 80. That said, there aren't a bunch of better options. You could make an arguement for Gale Winds but that really only helps with trash. OF, Solar Beam, Overgrowth and Fungal Growth are pretty useless in a raid environment.

@Mariusm

Mastery is currently our worst stat Point for point, and you shouldn't have any after the patch. I would leave it alone if at all possible.

@Moonlyt

There may be a small benefit to going MF, MF, IS, but It's not huge at the moment.

@Genaro

I will not be redoing my gear list for 4.0.1 since it will only be important for a month or two. It would require a lot of work for very little benefit.

I haven't looked at your armory yet, but I had a question about the 5% int for leather items. I'm currently using a 277 crushing coldwraith belt and the 277 plaguestained pants. While changing my gear to 5 piece and using the badge belt wouldn't be terrible, how much of a sp loss would it be to not have the 5% buff? Would using higher gear levels that have higher int and sp on them outweigh replacing them with lower gear level items just to receive the buff?

Qieth lists his Glyph choices in no uncertain terms - for lower haste levels, Insect Swarm/Starsurge/Starfire are his choices; at higher gear levels, Insect Swarm/Starsurge/Wrath. Starfall has been a pretty substantial amount of our damage in ICC. Even though it's damage has been nerfed a bit for 4.0, I'd still say that a baseline 45 second reduction on the cooldown is a pretty significant buff. You get 30 from the Starfall major glyph, and a minimum of 15 seconds from the Prime Starsurge glyph - you are much more likely to get 20-25 seconds knocked off of Starfall from the glyph (due to Shooting Stars procs).

So, the question is, in a 6.5 minute Patchwerk-style fight, are 11 Starfalls greater or less than 6 Starfalls and 20% Moonfire DoT damage? How about if there were two Patchwerks (think a simple Twin Val'kyr's fight)?

I don't know if you know this or not but the Leather specialization is a binary thing. You either have it for your entire charicter or you don't. So by using a cloth item in one slot may gain you 20 Int in that slot, it will cost you 100 Int for your entire toon.

A single ilevel difference is not going to be enough to make you keep a cloth item.

Also, blizzard is assuming you will have it so, your spell power in ICC gear will go down if you don't have all leather gear.

@Tilgare

You're making a lot of assumptions in your analysis.

1. Your point only holds true if you cast Starfall on cooldown. Are you sure that is the case?

There are several fights in which I save starfall for a specific event like blood beasts or bone spikes. In those cases GoSS only helps if it allows your Starfall CD match the boss abilities. That may or may not be the case.

2. I think you are over estimating how much the SF cooldown will be reduced by the glyph a little.

Think about it this way. As you reduce the SF CD with GoSS it gets harder to reduce it more because you have less time.

Your not going to get a minumum of 15 sec CD reduction from GoSS. Remember that SS has a cast time and for it to be a minimum 15 sec reduction you would have to cast SS 3 times in 45 seconds guarenteed. That is impossible. So the minimum reduction is only 10 seconds.

Second, Shooting Stars is going to proc on average about once ever 22 seconds with early raid gear. So in 50 seconds you are highly likely to get at least one proc reducing the cooldown to 45 seconds. Getting 2 procs in 40 seeconds is reasonable but not definate. Getting 3 in 35 seconds is the definition of a long shot. Getting more then that is near impossible.

So with the GoSS, A 45 sec cooldown on Starfall is pretty much guarenteed. A 40 sec CD is likely but can't be expected every time. Anything below that is highly unlikely.

If you combine that with my first point GoSS looks a lot less attractive. I'm not saying its a bad glyph, but it's more situational the Qieth suggests.

I'm not sure if I understand all of your math. Here was my reasoning. Starsurge has a 15 second cooldown. Starfall has a 60 second cooldown.

I assume an opener like this one: DoT, Starfall, Starsurge, Wrath x ?.

In the following, I don't account for any Shooting Stars procs. I assume Starsurge goes off every 16-18 seconds for two reasons: First, it doesn't always come off cooldown exactly as your previous spell finishes casting - when it does, you've got ~1.5 sec cast time getting it off at about 16.5 sec after the last cast. If you're in the middle of casting, you may waste 1 second with Surge off cd, cast it for 1.5 sec, and it finishes casting 17.5 seconds after the last one.

Opener. Starfall is now on a 60 second cooldown. You Starsurge (lets round to 2 second cast for this one), dropping it by 5. In 16-18 seconds (20 second mark), your Starsurge goes off again (thus reducing the cd of Starfall). So far, this is a 10 second reduction. Another 16-18 seconds (38 second mark), Starsurge reduces Starfall's cd to a total of 15 seconds. So far, ~38 "Surge" seconds have elapsed. Starfall will come up before Starsurge (Starfall has 7 second left on cd), having only had a 45 second cooldown.

This 15 seconds should be guaranteed, with no RNG involved. You say you can't cast Starsurge 3 times in 45 seconds, but I think you're thinking about it as if you had to wait 15 seconds to cast the first, then 15 for the second, then 15 for the third. In reality, you cast one, then 15 sec, cast 2nd, then at the 30 sec mark cast 3rd.

Once you start looking at Shooting Stars procs, things get out of whack. It can proc immediately after you cast Starsurge (AWESOME when this happens), it can proc WHILE you're in the middle of casting it (/facepalm), it can proc RIGHT as it comes off cooldown (instant cast, but no cd reduction), it can proc somewhere in the middle, or not at all of course.

I'll quote you and shift numbers by 5 seconds. This is about how it felt for me.

"Second, Shooting Stars is going to proc on average about once ever 22 seconds with early raid gear. So in 50 seconds you are highly likely to get at least one proc reducing the cooldown to 40 seconds. Getting 2 procs in 35 seeconds is reasonable but not definate. Getting 3 in 30 seconds is the definition of a long shot. Getting more then that is near impossible.

So with the GoSS, A 40 sec cooldown on Starfall is pretty much guarenteed. A 35 sec CD is likely but can't be expected every time. Anything below that is highly unlikely."

Now, back to your first point, I obviously cannot argue with that. You can't ALWAYS use it right off cooldown, however, there are many times that I end up keeping it off cooldown for probably 20-30 seconds waiting for the right time. You might be underestimating just how well it will fit into boss timers. Where you only get to use it every other set of Beasts, every 2-3 Bonespikes, every other Ooze, every Frostmourne room (but not outside at all), I suspect you might be able to hit each set of Beasts, every other set of spikes, every Unstable Experiment, and both inside and outside of the Frostmourne room. Then there are fights like Rotface or Festergut where you would blow Starfall on cooldown (other than if you save it for a second or two since you know you're about to run) and don't need to worry about lining it up with boss abilities.

It seems that you and Qieth are at different ends on Prime Glyphs. While you have two options that leaves the variable between nuke glyphs, Qieth has completely different prime set ups that incorporate starsurge along with nukes and dots. Care to explain?

With regards to my first point, I said the glyph would be situationally useful if it allowed the Sfall CD to match up well with high DPS phases. So I'm not exactly sure what you are disagreeing with.

Making a list of fights where GoSS MIGHT be useful doesn't refute my point. I could make a simplar list.

The other thing concideration I didn't mention is the comparison to other Glyphs and casting strategys. It's a little hard to tell without a solid simulator, but at this point I don't think it stacks up with the other glyphs.

I guess I'm not disagreeing actually. I think I'm just expecting it to be useful on most fights using GoMF situationally and you expect the opposite. I honestly don't think we'll be able to get to the bottom of it until we can properly simulate both options and a variety of scenarios.

Perhaps I want GoSS to succeed because it is much more interesting and quite fun. =) In fact, if the Devs did what they said they wanted to, both options would work out nearly identically and you could pick the one you want. (They try, but usually something pulls ahead. Hey, we'll see.)

(Gale Winds - It's lots of fun for big numbers during trash, but there isn't a fight at the moment that really needs this kind of AoE.)

This comment caught my attention and wanted to comment. For me, Gale Winds is very important damage boost for Heroic Halion25 when you have to kill the Living Embers. It also helps during Heroic Deathwhisper by giving the added Cyclone range for CCing MCs. Just wanted to add that in.

Okay, maybe I'm missing something here - it wouldn't be the first time something obvious escaped me - but both the talents linked here and the talents linked from Qieth's guide only have a required level of 79.

So is the answer to this:

1) the talent calculators are wrong2) the extra point makes no difference and I should just stick it where I like3) or does the extra point make a difference and the suggested specs would change now the available points are 37 and not 36?

@Sondahl - Actually none of the above. From 11-79, you gain talent points every other (odd) level. This means you do not gain any talent points when you level from 79 to 80, thus your specs would be the same. Leveling 81-85 you get a point every level. They made changes to the talent UI in game that makes it much clearer than current online talent calculators.

I read this post quite often and I would like to thank you very much for your time and effort for helping make the moonkin transition for 4.0 as painless as possible. I found everything I needed to know from your blog.

Is it still feasible to spec for Sunfire since on live servers it still doesn't scale with haste and ticks every 3 sec? I think it would be beneficial for high movement fights where Sunfire/Moonfire spam will be in our rotation, but for patchwerk type of fights isn't it a downgrade from regular Moonfire?

I am not sure if you noticed but...-Sunfire turns your moonfire in to a Nature damage spell..

-Only Wrath/Starfire/Starsurge will move your elcp. So If you proc a lunar you can spam mooonfire all the hell you want with out loseing any power. I was testing out a moonfire build and was able to get 10-12k moonfire base crits. I pushed 15k with all the trinkets procing.

-Also Glyph of Starfire Is bad for us now. You want to redo your moonfire when ever you go into a solar elcp (so it becomes nature). so this glyph no longer will do us anygood. If your recasting your dots at the top of your elcp.

-Lastly I am not sure why you place Mastery so low atm. by giving up around 3% haste and 5% crit i was able to push it upto 50% more damage (total). When i was doing a real rotation, i was only ever out of an elcp for about three to four spells.

Actually, as far as I've read, Black magic (haste proc on 1h) is better than the 61 sp one. 81sp still on staff, but haste on 1h.

I specced pretty much as you did and after training, reforging, re-enchanting, changing a gem or two (plus gemming the relic) and glyphing I ended up with about 4k sp, 18.2%hit, 49%crit and around 950 haste (which I think is without the haste buff ?!). I thought armory was gonna work but no such luck so sorry I don't have more exact numbers.

Also, dps last night was crazy. Although I think either recount is bugged or the patch itself since most fights I had IS as top damage. Love the 45k crits <3

I have a small gearing question regarding middle-end trinkets, with the int to spell power conversion, I guess the talisman of resurgence (triumph emblems trinket with 128 int) becomes much, much better for moonkins than it used to be right?

Regardless of the increased mana pool (and thus mana regen) it kicks in 128 spell + 599 for 20 secs every 2 minutes. It also brings almost 1% of crit AND scales with kings/mark... your opinion on using that trinket now? Compared to muradin's spyglass for example.

With some simple target dummy testing the GoSS allowed me to have Starfall ready at within +/- 5 seconds of the start of every Lunar Eclipse, i.e. able to use it within the duration of each Lunar Eclipse. I'm not going to venture that it's the glyph of choice for all raiding environments based solely on dummy testing, but for scenarios where maximum overall single target dps is the name of the game this glyph probably can stake a claim given what it can achieve under ideal circumstances.

Also remember not to fixate too much on "is glyph X ideal for the most number of raid fights?", the question at this point should be "Are glyphs X, Y, and Z what I should use -for this specific fight- ?". Swapping glyphs in and out should be the norm now with the reagent cost being so cheap, and I can only hope it will remain that way going forward into Cataclysm.

Also, huge LOL for the dps moonkins are doing right now. Saurfang last night I clocked in 17k+ overall dps, with the next closest being 2k behind. I'd love for this to continue but I imagine a nerf is coming in the short term.

I've got a REALLY stupid question. Does leather specialization mean that we need to be wearing leather capes in our back slot (before we get the passive buff)? Every back slot in the game is cloth, so...

2. Whether penetration matters any more in pvp, whether resilience matters any more in pvp (with the completely unnecessary break rogues got for some reason).

3. Whether the combat mana regen is permanently fixed at a certain value (no matter how i reforge around spirit or change gear the combat regen number doesn’t move it up or down AT ALL) or if it is broken or just bugged (just not showing the changes in the pane).

Thanks guys, this would help more than anything else. Would like to know before i start wasting honor and justice points on, well, pointless gear.

Hi Scott - I just got my boomkin to 80 the day before the patch, so I feel some of your pain.

Mana regen in combat: I'm having it happen, too. My regen is 175 per 5 in combat, is yours the same? And yes, I checked after reforging each piece that lowered spirit. It may be a glitch that affects certain realms/battlegroups - like the way my second profession went up in smoke and still hasn't made a reappearance - everyone who has a gathering prof on my server suffered the same fate.

Hit rating: You want 446 points, which is 17%. Napkin math/practical considerations: You can only reforge items that are ilvl 200 or higher (so if you have some ilvl 187 items you can't reforge those). I'm thinking that if you're a little over 17% hit but under 19% with reforging, you're probably okay - granted, those points over 446 are technically wasted, but get 446 and don't lose sleep over being a little bit over (if you're, say, 10 - 60 points under, most of that can probably be gemmed/enchanted in). I doubt anybody (especially a fresh 80) is geared so that they can reforge/gem to the exact amount of hit needed at level 80. Aim for 446, don't stress if you end up at 420 or 480, pick up what gear you can as you can and know it's all going to change in less than two months anyway.

Next up: Haste. There are no longer any realistic caps for haste or crit, and haste is the superior stat, get as much of it as you can. Crit still helps, but not as much as it used to do.

In short, hit (until capped, don't stress if you're a little bit over), int (our most important stat), haste (as much as you can get), and then crit. Spirit - not a horrible stat, we are going to need that regen, even out-of-combat it can occasionally help, but I'd reforge some to hit (if needed) or haste if you have more than say, 400-500 spirit - though some folks might put it lower - still, you're likely doing 5-mans, replenishment is dicey/non-existent, and yes, you can go OOM in instances if your gear is low-level 80 stuff (or at least I was and the innervate button didn't quite save me), so for now my 500 spirit is staying. I can't manage with less, possibly because I often get called on for back-up healing.

The changes in this patch have affected our gearing RADICALLY and the regen thing seems like it has to be a bug.

Replace any cloth pieces with leather as you do heroics, raids, get points to buy tier/rep reward gear, etc.

I don't do much PVP, none at all since the patch and I know resilience and spell pen have changed, but I don't think they're worthless.

Wish I could help more, but the patch has caused so many technical problems for me that I've not had the ability to even log in enough to do near as much testing as I'd like.

Oh yes - any cape is fine, whether it's created by a tailor, a leatherworker or looted. That doesn't count for leather specialisation.

You'll also want spirit if you're doing PVP - forgot about that, but it's terribly easy to go OOM in battlegrounds or arenas, so yes, stack some. I think the regen bug is indeed a bug of some sort, but life got easier when I switched over and used my spirit-laden shoulders, cape and chest all the time.

Even giving the tank 4 seconds to catch aggro at the beginning of a fight before casts (and i start by casting FF), i some times have aggro issues at the middle of the fight, and not after air phases and such. I would like to know if someone else is having aggro issues.

Also, about treants, it also good to have cd down for bloodlust since they benefit from it too.

I guess I'm not disagreeing actually. I think I'm just expecting it to be useful on most fights using GoMF situationally and you expect the opposite. I honestly don't think we'll be able to get to the bottom of it until we can properly simulate both options and a variety of scenarios. Moonlyt: It seems that the only time you have to clip dots is on bloodlust, otherwise always refresh the dots 1 sec before it fades; you can delay is or mf if it fades off at 1 or 2 nukes from an eclipse proc - refresh the dot just after casting the first eclipsed nuke